The Elizas: A Novel(78)

What was the truth? Who could she trust?

She didn’t know what to do. She found herself spinning into violent rages over so very little—a guy who cut her off on the freeway, a snappish sales clerk, how the Q button on her keyboard kept sticking. She threw books. She didn’t like this new version of herself. Finally, two nights ago, she told Marlon everything she’d found, including her mother’s accusations. How they matched up, dreadfully, with her experience in the hospital when she was young. In her dreadful research, she’d found out that in California, she was still well within her statute of limitations of bringing what her aunt had done to her to trial. Or her mother bringing it to trial, if it came to that.

And maybe it would come to that. Her mother had called the police, after all. Had they gone to the Magnolia? Was Dorothy in jail? Dot kept scouring the news, but she found nothing. Wouldn’t a Munchausen story be interesting to the local public? A glamorous ex-socialite behind bars for torturing her niece? Finally, she called the Magnolia Hotel and asked if Dorothy Banks was still staying there. “No, she checked out several weeks ago,” a concierge said. But was that true, or was the Magnolia protecting her?

That morning, as she was nursing her hangover, a hangover that felt authentic and nothing like the obliterating fog that hung over her on the mornings she woke up in Dorothy’s suite, a knock sounded at her dorm room door. Her boyfriend looked up but didn’t stand. Dot walked calmly to the foyer, but a few feet away, she froze. Dorothy was on the other side. Dot just knew.

She turned back to her boyfriend, her eyes wide. Her heart was thumping in her throat. He cocked his head. And then: “Dot?” Her voice. “Darling, can you let me in?”

Her boyfriend paled and half stood. Dot licked her lips and motioned for him to remain still.

The pounding began. “I know you’re in there. I saw you through the window.”

Dot met her boyfriend’s horrified gaze across the room.

“I miss you, darling,” came Dorothy’s voice. “What’s going on between your mother and me is our business—she shouldn’t be putting you in the middle of it. I just want to see you for a moment. I have something for you.”

Dot was biting down so hard on her knuckles—she knew there would be teeth marks in her skin. Finally, she walked to the door and opened it a crack. Dorothy stood on the other side. Her face was drawn, and her hair was shot with gray. There were bags under her eyes and wrinkles corrugating her forehead and around her mouth. She smelled sour and unwashed. A mink stole hung limply on her shoulders. It was as though she hadn’t slept or eaten or done her makeup since the last time Dot had seen her. Dot wondered, suddenly, if she had fled from the Magnolia—from the police. Maybe she’d been living in her car. It was probably a risk for her to be here.

Relief flooded Dorothy’s face when Dot opened the door, and she threw her arms around Dot’s neck. “Oh, darling,” she breathed. “I missed you so much.”

Dot let her arms hang at her sides. Her heart was pounding very hard. “Um, I have class soon.”

“I understand. But here.” Dorothy rooted around in her tote and handed Dot something wrapped in red paper. Dot went to tuck it away, but Dorothy bobbed her head, indicating she open it now. Slowly, Dot pulled the paper off. Inside was a dusty copy of The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.

“It’s a first edition, first printing,” Dorothy explained. “A collector’s item.”

Dot raised the book to her nose. It smelled like mustiness and paper, an old bookstore. She’d read The Bell Jar already. The choice felt oddly significant, eerily canny, like Dorothy knew what Dot had found out about her.

“Have dinner with me,” Dorothy whispered, clutching Dot’s hand. Her fingers felt cold and bony. “Tonight. Please, darling. At our place. Please, and I’ll explain what’s going on. I’ll tell you why your mother is doing this. I need you to hear my side.”

“Aren’t you worried about the police?”

“Oh, honey, there’s no concern about the police. Your mother . . . that was just to scare you. And me. Please. You won’t be doing anything wrong. Please meet me. It’s very important.”

Dot could feel her boyfriend shift his weight in the chair. A flare of pain pinged in her head, then fizzled out. “Okay,” she whispered. “I’ll see you there.”

She shut the door and turned back to her boyfriend, her knees shaking. Her boyfriend gawked at her. “What the hell is wrong with you? We should call the cops right now!”

“No, I have an idea. A way to prove if it’s actually happening. And if it’s true, then we can go to the police.”

She told him the idea. He pressed his hands over his eyes and shook his head. “No, Dot. No. You can’t do that.” He went through all the reasons why. Dot nodded. Maybe he was right. It probably was dangerous, even illegal. What they should do is wait until Dorothy came to them again at the dorm. Then they would call 911. Dorothy’s boyfriend said he would stay with her every night to protect her. He would make sure she was never alone here.

Dot’s boyfriend’s watch went off. It was time for him to go to class; her too. “You promise you won’t see her later?” he begged her as they parted at the quad.

“I promise,” Dot answered.

His expression was guarded, haggard, and sad. He pressed her little hands between his big ones just as Dorothy had done. “All right. If you need anything, call me. I’ll keep my phone on. I’ll check it every ten minutes.”